Founding Engineer - Platform

As a Founding Engineer at Colrows, you will play a crucial role in shaping and scaling our generative analytics platform. We are dedicated to revolutionizing how enterprises engage with data, aiming to make insights as accessible as conversing with a colleague. Our platform integrates robust data foundations, agentic workflows, and enterprise-grade governance to deliver a seamless, self-serve experience. Join us in driving the development of a powerful execution engine that lies at the core of our platform. In this role, you will serve as a hands-on Principal Software Engineer, leveraging your architectural expertise and practical experience in constructing resilient systems using Java and open-source technologies. Your primary responsibility will be to lead the design and implementation of the backend engine, which processes and transforms large-scale structured data with a focus on precision, performance, and clarity. Key Responsibilities: - Design and construct essential components of the Colrows platform, such as distributed query execution, type-safe data transformation pipelines, and high-performance connectors to various database backends. - Architect and deploy scalable, fault-tolerant services in Java utilizing open-source libraries and tools. - Ensure accuracy in data type mappings, memory representations, and serialization across diverse data systems. - Mentor and guide engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and the implementation of production-quality solutions. - Collaborate with AI, frontend, and infrastructure teams to deliver a cohesive and agentic product experience. - Take charge of technical decision-making by balancing performance, maintainability, and extensibility. You Bring: - Over 10 years of hands-on experience in backend engineering with a specialization in Java. - A solid foundation in computer science fundamentals, particularly in data structures, memory models, and type systems. - Previous experience handling large datasets spanning terabytes of structured data across distributed systems. - Practical knowledge of data type mappings in SQL engines, Java, JSON, Avro, Arrow, and binary formats. - Proficiency in in-memory data representations, caching strategies, and performance optimization. - Demonstrated success in designing and implementing clean, testable, and production-grade code. - Familiarity with tools such as Apache Arrow, Apache Calcite, Apache Ignite, Presto/Trino, Apache Beam, RocksDB, Protobuf, gRPC, and Netty. - Bonus: Experience in contributing to open-source projects or building data platforms, databases, or query engines. What You'll Get: - Opportunity to work on a cutting-edge analytics platform that is reshaping how enterprises engage with data. - Direct collaboration with the founder and a dedicated, technically proficient team. - A culture that promotes ownership, autonomy, and deep engineering involvement. - Competitive compensation, meaningful equity, and the flexibility of a modern remote/hybrid work environment.,